Violence broke out after incumbent Goodluck Jonathan won 60% of the vote in presidential elections. It was the first popular mandate for Jonathan, a Christian from the country's south who was appointed last year when then President Umaru Yar'Adua died. Election monitors deemed the poll, in which 62 million voted, clean, but the party of challenger Muhammadu Buhari, from the country's mostly Muslim north, contested the result. Riots in northern cities led to 50 reported deaths and hundreds of injuries. Jonathan appealed for calm and unity. Analysts say the unrest is not simply an expression of a religious divide between north and south but the result of political and socioeconomic grievances. Nigeria sits atop some of the richest reserves of natural resources in Africa but is plagued by corruption.

World by the Numbers

[The following text appears within a map. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual map.]

45% U.S. Estimated percentage of American taxpayers who won't pay income tax in 2010

2 MEXICO

Number of people who speak the indigenous Ayapaneco tongue; the two are not on speaking terms

846 EGYPT

Number of civilians a fact-finding commission says were killed by security forces during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak

$360,000 HONG KONG

First-day earnings of Sex and Zen, a new 3-D porn film--a record haul for a movie in the city

66 MALAYSIA

Number of teenage boys being sent to a masculinity camp after schoolteachers identified them as effeminate

Gaddafi Heaps Misery on Misratah

LIBYA

As forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi pummeled rebel positions in the port city of Misratah, aid groups reported hundreds of civilian casualties and claimed the regime was using illegal cluster munitions. The intensity of the assault on the country's third largest city prompted the rebel leadership to criticize NATO's inability to fulfill its stated mission in Libya--to stop Gaddafi from killing civilians. The U.S. has scaled back its participation in the NATO operation, and many alliance members are wary of a war for regime change. Others are leaning forward: the U.K., France and Italy have said they will dispatch advisers to counsel the rebels on military and logistics coordination.